


DQ Week Day 3: Another Life

by Kc749



Series: DQ Week 2016 [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:06:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7332421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kc749/pseuds/Kc749
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It said another life; I chose my second favorite non-human/human lesbians. :D</p></blockquote>





	DQ Week Day 3: Another Life

“Help me,” says a hoarse voice in the shadows, and Lady Maleficent turns her head. It’s a young woman, clothed in men’s garments, hair shorn off above the shoulders. She smells, of horse and human sweat and worse things, the product of scrounging to stay alive.

She’s no ‘gutter rat’ though (and how Mal hates that term, sometimes cannot fathom how casually cruel these people are.) It’s something in her eyes, and her stance. This woman, short of stature though she may be, stands like a ruler.

She’s also ill. Fever stains her cheeks red, and her eyes are too bright to be healthy. There’s been a sickness running rampant among the people in this city, killing many, leaving others with disabilities that will plague them the rest of their (short, to Mal’s view) lives. Their lack of sanitation and understanding of how illnesses spread has not helped.

Usually she’d just continue on, back to the place the Doctor found for her when he found her awake and angry, attacking the humans who’d had the bad luck to stumble upon her underground chamber. She’d promised him not to hurt these little apes if she could help it, and she has kept her word. But her word did not mention actually saving any of them.

The young woman is still staring at her, shaking her head slightly every now and then as though her vision were not right, but she has stayed silent since that first plea for help. Perhaps she senses that in another time, Mal’s kind hunted hers instead of helping.

The young woman’s legs give out under her, and Mal doesn’t even think before she catches her. Aside from a brief struggle, the young woman doesn’t protest. And when Mal wraps her arm around her waist, she can feel most of the tension leave her body.

“Do you have a place to go?” Mal’s question is mostly formality. If she had kin worth their name she wouldn’t be asking for help from random passers-by. The shake of a head only confirms it. “Then you will come with me. What is your name?”

“Regina,” the woman answers, and Mal nods, lifts a hand for a nearby carriage, and it carries them both away.

*******

She’s unconscious for the better part of three days. Mal is in and out of the house, attending to business and hunting during the night, but she pays a nurse to stay and care for the sick woman. One day she wakes, late as is her routine, and finds a set of brown eyes staring at her. Odd, she thinks, that a woman so young and eyes that should resemble prey can look so dangerous. Mal isn’t frightened, but perhaps a bit wary.

“You saved my life,” Regina says.

Mal stretches, joints cracking. “I did,” she replies. “Is there a problem with that?”

The young woman eyes her. “Why?”

“You asked.”

That doesn’t appear to be the answer that she was looking for, and Regina stands, paces away and back. “So what do I owe to you now? What do you want?”

“Well, not ambushing me before I’ve had breakfast would be a good start,” Mal murmurs sardonically. She stands, stretches with her back to the other woman, and hears the soft gasp of surprise when Regina realises the differences in their biology. Much though she’d prefer not to be a spectacle, Mal stands still for a few long moments and lets Regina look. At the hubs from which her wings would extend, if she still had them. The striations of her skin, metallic and scaled and every hue of the rainbow. “Are you going to run away now, human?”

“What are you?”

Mal’s eyebrows raise at the lack of fear in the words, and she turns. “I am... Not human,” she answers, and turns back to watching the rain outside.

“Are there others like you? Where did you come from? Can you fly?” Regina’s irritation has vanished, chased away by the need to know more about this strange woman who rescued her.

Mal groans, wishing they still had chur’ko berries in this time. A knock sounds at the door, giving her enough time to pull on a robe before the nurse meant to be taking care of Regina pokes her head in and, seeing that Mal is decent and that her charge is there, comes all the way into the room. “I’m very sorry, m’lady. She was in bed, I stepped out a moment and when I returned she was gone!” She wraps a firm hand around one of Regina’s upper arms, and Mal notes the barely visible wince on Regina’s face. “I’ll see her back to bed.”

Regina pulls her arm away with a scowl. “I’m not ill anymore. And if you touch me again I’ll rip out your heart and feed it to you,” she threatens, somewhat spoiled by the white cotton nightdress she’s wearing, but still, it makes Mal laugh. Both humans turn at the sound, and Mal waves the nurse away. “Go. I think your patient has healed. You will be compensated well.”

With a last look at Regina, straight-backed and refusing to even glance her way, the nurse nods and leaves, shutting the door with perhaps a bit more force than is absolutely necessary.

“Tell me,” Maleficent begins with a smile. “How are you with a sword?”

**Author's Note:**

> It said another life; I chose my second favorite non-human/human lesbians. :D


End file.
